Death Stranding will launch in early 2019, according to an Amazon listing… wait, what?

Amazon's release date for the game is questionable, but it does line up with Kojima’s teased launch window…

What are you doing on March 29, next year? If you've got any plans, scrap 'em, because Death Stranding may or may not be releasing on that date, if this new information - courtesy of Amazon UK - is to be believed.

The retailer's product listing for Hideo Kojima's first game outside the walls of Konami previously had a placeholder launch date of December 31, 2018, in keeping with Death Stranding's now delayed plans to release sometime this year. It's become very clear since then, however, that the almost indescribable title is as kooky and ambitious as anything Kojima's done in the past, and clearly needs a little more time in the slow cooker before releasing as a fully playable product.

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So then why is Amazon suggesting the game will be out before the end of Q1 2019? Well, there could be a number of explanations. The first is the most likely (and most disappointing) option. Amazon, among several other online stores, put up placeholder release dates for games, films, and other products all the time, as a way of predicting a general launch window in anticipation for sales.

With that in mind, it very well could be that March 29 next year comes and goes without Death Stranding, and Amazon will then push its placeholder date back to the end of 2019's second quarter in business as usual fashion. It does seem very unlikely for the game to release so closely to Days Gone, Sony's other big first-party title (which is out on February 22), after all.

Orrr... perhaps Amazon knows something we don't know. Perhaps Death Stranding really is out on March 29, or at least sometime around that date, and an impending announcement from Kojima Productions is arriving very shortly. Unlikely, for sure, but not beyond possibility, given that Kojima himself has revealed he has a release date in mind for the game, and it sits somewhere between 2019 and early 2020.

Before the Tokyo Olympic Games.Before the new Akira. https://t.co/PEuuP8FRfLSeptember 18, 2016

Best not to get too excited, though. Amazon US, for example, still has Death Stranding down as releasing on New Year's Eve this year, so it's probable that the company knows as little as we do. No, the only person who really knows when Death Stranding is coming out is Hideo Kojima. And maybe Guillermo del Toro. They are best buds, you know.

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